Recently, Changhai Road Sub-district Federation of Trade Unions held the third "Changhai Cup" staff badminton competition in 2023. All units in the jurisdiction actively signed up, and nearly 110 players from 23 teams gathered together to compete.

The competition adopts men’s singles, women’s singles and team competition system, and is carried out in the form of elimination. The scene of the competition was brilliant and climaxed. Players and groups competed at different levels. Players compared tactics, patience, jumping, backhand, smash and flowing, which fully demonstrated the indomitable, courageous and passionate spirit of Changhai employees and greeted the audience with cheers.

This competition has built a platform for Changhai employees to keep fit, and also provided opportunities for exchanges and discussions. Based on the principle of "civilization, friendship, hard work and progress", after two days of fierce competition, the top three players in the competition were finally decided, and the Street Federation of Trade Unions presented awards to the winners and groups respectively.

Text/picture: Chang Hai

Editor: Zhou Mengzhen

First, education is to squat down and talk to children. Education is to turn yourself into a child and turn the child into yourself.

In the journey of education, we often ignore an important detail, that is, the importance of equal dialogue with children. Squatting down to talk to children means that we should put down our posture and communicate with them in an equal manner. Only in this way can we truly understand their inner world and establish a close and trusting relationship.

Second, education is to listen to children’s voices.

Listening is an art and a kind of respect. In education, we should give children ample space to express themselves, listen to their voices and pay attention to their needs and ideas. Only by listening can we better understand children’s puzzles and problems and give them correct guidance and support.

Third, education is to let children become protagonists.

Every child is a unique individual, and they have their own interests, dreams and specialties. In education, we should respect children’s personality and make them the protagonists of learning. By stimulating their learning interest and potential, we can help them find their own advantages and values, thus cultivating confident, independent and creative individuals.

Fourth, education is companionship, not companionship.

Companionship is the most precious gift in education. In the process of children’s growth, we need to give them enough time and attention to share their happiness and difficulties with them. However, companionship is not only physical companionship, but also spiritual companionship. We should feel the emotional needs of children with our heart, give them warmth and support, and let them feel our love and care.

Fifth, education is to give children enough time to "think".

Children’s imagination is infinite, and their thinking often exceeds our imagination. In education, we should give children enough time to think and explore freely. Children can cultivate innovative thinking and problem-solving ability through "thinking in a whimsical way", thus laying a solid foundation for future development.

Education is a great cause, which concerns the growth and future of every child. It is necessary to create a loving and caring learning environment for children, so that they can thrive on the road of growth. Let’s work together to pave a bright road for the children’s future!

The contest between domestic brands and international brands has always been a hot topic in the beauty industry.

In the past double 11, domestic brands finally won a staged victory: Polaiya won the first place in the beauty industry of Tmall and Tik Tok, and the first place in the beauty industry of JD.COM, which is the first time that domestic brands have topped the beauty list of Tmall double 11 since 2018. Earlier in October, Polaiya released the third quarter financial report, and the company’s revenue in the first three quarters reached 5.249 billion yuan, ranking first among cosmetics listed companies in China. From these perspectives, the industry pays attention to and studies Polaiya not only to find an answer for its success, but also to find the direction of the evolution of domestic beauty products.

At the same time, international brands are still aggressive. L ‘Oré al China’s double 11 Battle Report shows that it is the beauty group with the largest number of short-listed brands in the TOP list of Tmall, Tik Tok and JD.COM, and maintains a leading position in high-end beauty, high-end dermatological skin care, make-up, hair care and so on. During the 6th China International Import Expo(CIIE), many beauty giants announced the launch of new products and new skin care technologies, showing their attention to the China market.

As important industry weathervanes, double 11 Dapromotion and China International Import Expo(CIIE) represent the "offensive and defensive" strategy and evolution direction of beauty enterprises. It is difficult for us to draw any conclusions from the short-term ranking changes and new trends in enterprises, and we need to lengthen the cycle to look at it, but perhaps we can find the frontier trends of the beauty industry and the development opportunities of domestic beauty.

On the ups and downs of domestic beauty cosmetics from double 11

The performance of domestic brands is not a new topic in double 11 this year. Taking stock of previous double 11, there are many domestic brands in the beauty industry, but compared with international brands, the ranking of domestic brands is unstable, and there are many "one-round tourists". Taking the Tmall platform as an example, the domestic beauty products shortlisted in the TOP10 list have experienced the iteration of Amoy brand, local big brands and a new generation of domestic brands. Taking 2020 as the boundary, the domestic brands in the head have been greatly replaced, and only Winona has been shortlisted in the TOP10, ranking steadily and rising; Polaiya has made great efforts since last year and has become one of the representatives of new domestic products.

This year, the beauty category was affected by multiple factors, and there were not many surprises in the overall transaction performance. The domestic beauty products rose obviously and became one of the highlights. Among them, Tmall’s head beauty brand pattern has undergone a major renovation. SK-II and Shiseido fell out of the TOP10 due to the Japanese nuclear pollution incident, and Polaiya pushed a number of foreign brands to the top. From the perspective of brand types, comprehensive beauty brands occupy the mainstream, and functional skin care brands represented by Polaiya, Winona and Xiulike gradually rise.

In Tik Tok, another important position of beauty cosmetics, the brand pattern is different. Before that, some international brands didn’t enter Tik Tok, but domestic brands took advantage of the traffic bonus to win some opportunities. In the face of international big-name competition this year, domestic brands still have comparative advantages, achieving breakthroughs with high cost performance and refined channel operation. It is worth noting that the beauty instrument brand is outstanding in the beauty category in Tik Tok, which may be due to the live e-commerce gene of the platform, and the anchor can convey the complex principle, function and use experience of the beauty instrument to consumers.

The change of brand pattern is only the appearance, and behind the replacement of domestic brands, there are some phenomena worthy of attention.

On the whole, in addition to the cost-effective advantage, the rise of domestic brands is largely due to the accurate understanding of the needs of local consumers and the targeted launch of large single products. This feature is particularly evident in the category of skin care products. Domestic brands focus on consumers’ anti-aging anxiety and popular skin care concepts such as formula skin care, morning C and evening A, and barrier repair, and launch large single products that focus on maintaining stability, anti-aging and anti-wrinkle, contributing an important sales share to the brand. Winona Soothing and Repairing Freeze-dried Mask, Quaddy Essence, Kanshuhong Waist Suit, and Polaiya Early C Late A Suit have all appeared on the list of explosive items in double 11 on the e-commerce platform. Guoji Feigua’s 2022 double 11 Yuehaowu Power Saver Data Report shows that Polaiya’s early C late A combination contributed about 35% of its sales in double 11, Tik Tok in 2022 (from October 15th to November 11th, 2022).

Hot topics related to skin care on social platforms, image source: Fruit Collection "Insights into Accurate Skin Care Crowds on Social Media Platforms in 2023"

Large single products help domestic brands occupy a place in the list, but whether the brand stands stably enough and rushes high enough depends on whether the product iteration and category expansion can be carried out around the core efficacy to extend the product life cycle. Take Polaiya as an example, its core product series has been iterated for 2-3 generations, and many categories such as essence, water emulsion, cream and eye cream have been introduced. This helps the brand to enrich the sku portfolio, continuously create a "freshness" and increase the customer unit price. Before double 11, Polaiya released Ruby Cream 3.0 series, which contains three textures of lightness, moisture and lightness to meet the needs of different skin types. This product is also the best-selling product of brand Tmall flagship store in the past year. According to the official list of Tik Tok, Polaiya’s Early C Late A Essence Cream Set was shortlisted in double 11’s beauty explosion list. The price of this group member is close to 700 yuan, which greatly improves the price range of the product.

Compared with the field of skin care, the overall competitiveness of domestic brands in makeup is still not as good as that of international brands, especially in the high-end price band. The reason is that domestic cosmetics are mostly designed innovatively around "Chinese aesthetics", and the advantage lies in color-related categories, but the fashion trend of cosmetics changes rapidly, which is difficult to bring high consumer loyalty to brands. Domestic brands still need to make breakthroughs in skin feeling and makeup effect in order to break the situation dominated by international big brands and explore the high-end price. Perfect Diary, which was criticized for focusing on marketing, gradually paid more attention to the functional attributes and technical barriers of products. Before double 11, the brand released its "bionic membrane" essence lipstick, which is the research result of "integration of makeup and nourishing", focusing on the combination of red makeup effect, lip essence effect and lip membrane, to show the brand’s breakthrough in scientific research and innovation.

Another obvious feature of the great promotion is that the pattern of domestic beauty cosmetics is moving towards differentiation. Judging from the performance of domestic brands in different stages of Tmall double 11, many brands have become "dark horses" with the help of the initial promotion atmosphere, super-anchor delivery and other factors, but they often have bright short-term performance and insufficient stamina, and few of them can continue to lead in the whole cycle. Under the trend that Japanese and Korean brands are cold and consumers are disenchanted with international brands as a whole, the development of domestic brands is welcoming, but it is still necessary to continue to precipitate the normal operation ability and cultivate brand endurance on the basis of explosive power.

Generally speaking, domestic beauty cosmetics have ushered in a "reversal" moment during this double 11 by accurately understanding the needs of local consumers, constantly expanding the matrix of large items, high cost performance and refined channel operation.

More than "big items"

Relying on the explosive strategy to meet the current hot demand, domestic beauty brands have the opportunity to "go to the table" and gradually narrow the gap with international brands. However, from the results, it is difficult for domestic beauty products to obtain long-term growth momentum by relying on explosive products. Only by creating a "big single product" and developing a "big brand" can a brand resist a round of shuffling and sit at the poker table for a longer time.

It is not without trace that domestic brands represented by Polaiya and Winona have won great victories. They benefited from the rise of the component party and the efficacy party, and implemented the strategy of "big single product", but they did not rely on this strategy. As mentioned above, the three series of Polaiya Double Antibody, Ruby and Yuanli have been extended from essence to different categories. This year, Polaiya launched a new energy series for the anti-aging needs of mature muscles, and its three-piece energy set, which cost more than 1000 yuan, entered the live broadcast room in Li Jiaqi during its stay in double 11, which shows the brand’s intention to push this series. Winona, Kerfumei and other brands are also constantly expanding their category matrix and reducing their dependence on a single big item. After verifying the heat of recombinant collagen components with collagen rods, Kefumei accelerated the pace of promoting new products, supplemented the categories of emulsion and mask, and its water supply line and oil control line also launched different types of products one after another.

The richness of brand category structure, on the one hand, represents the life cycle and anti-risk ability of brand products, on the other hand, represents its coverage of different levels of consumer demand and different scenarios. The application of patented ingredients to the technical threshold such as essence and cream with higher premium ability also helps domestic brands to gradually get rid of the image of relying on low prices and explore high-end prices. According to Polaiya’s financial report, the average selling price of the company’s skin care products increased by 57.05% year-on-year, mainly due to the year-on-year sales increase of essence and cream products with higher unit price.

From the above results, we can see that domestic beauty cosmetics are taking enhancing product research and development capabilities as a strategic goal and tearing off the label of "emphasizing marketing and neglecting research and development". Local beauty companies have increased the proportion of R&D investment, and focused on components, raw materials and other links that can help enterprises build barriers. In recent two years, synthetic biology, molecular biology and other technologies have been accelerated to be applied to skin care products, and "skin care+biological components" has become a high-growth concept of beauty track, which requires enterprises to carry out collaborative research on basic research, functional raw materials and formula system. According to Zhongxin. com, there are currently 121 research and development projects on raw materials and synthetic organisms in Huaxi Bio. Double 11’s outstanding Fumei brand, its parent company Juzi Bio has four collagen medical beauty products under research, two of which are expected to be approved in 2024, becoming a new source of growth for the enterprise.

Image source: CBNData《2023 Oriental Beauty Valley Blue Book "

Another dimension that domestic brands have been examined for a long time is the ability to operate omni-channel. This batch of new domestic brands have risen online. When the traffic dividend is gradually divided up, on the one hand, brands need to treat online channels in a refined way to improve profit margins. On the other hand, they begin to respect traditional channels, return to offline and near-field e-commerce, and even enter duty-free shops to find new growth opportunities. However, with the new channels, there are new ways of playing and brand logic, as well as powerful opponents. Domestic brands still have a long way to go.

Grouping proposition

From the perspective of single brand, domestic brands initially have the right to speak in the beauty industry with big names. However, from the perspective of the group, there is still a big gap between the comprehensive strength of domestic brands and international beauty cosmetics. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, almost half of the seats in double 11’s e-commerce platform beauty list this year belong to L ‘Oré al’s brands. Although the performance of Estee Lauder Group declined in fiscal year 2023, the main brands of the same name, Estee Lauder and Hailan Mystery, are still relatively strong in the high-end price band.

"L ‘Oré als" have achieved the coverage of different categories, price bands and sub-groups by virtue of top-class, high-end, Volkswagen, cinema and other brands, and better enhanced the Group’s ability to resist risks. No matter how the external environment and consumer demand change, there are corresponding sub-brands in the group to undertake.

However, domestic beauty cosmetics have not yet owned their own "L ‘Oreal" and "Estee Lauder". Although Polaiya, Huaxi Bio and Juzi Bio take the multi-brand route, at present, their dependence on a single brand is still relatively high, or the differences between sub-brands are not obvious. Although the ingredients and focus areas of Fumei and Kelijin under Juzi Bio are different, the brand needs to further formulate differentiation strategies in order to make consumers clear about their differences. According to the data of Polaiya’s financial report, in the first three quarters of 2023, the main brand contributed about 80% to the Group’s revenue, and Caitang accounted for about 10% of the total revenue. The sub-brands such as Off&Realx and Yuefushi made little contribution, and it remains to be seen whether they can become the "N-th growth curve". At the brand’s 20th anniversary strategy conference, Polaiya said that she would innovate the strategic planning, from "troika" to "6*N strategy", and broaden the multi-category matrix of skin care, make-up, toiletries and high-efficiency categories.

In addition to self-incubation, some brands refer to L ‘Oré al’s acquisition strategy to build their own brand matrix. Take Yixian Group as an example. Since 2019, it has successively acquired cosmetics brand Odin, French high-end skin care brand Kelanli, British high-end beauty brand EVE LOM, and functional skin care brand DR.WU (business in Chinese mainland). On the one hand, it has improved the layout in the field of skin care, on the other hand, it has told high-end stories. Increasing the proportion of skin care business has indeed improved the financial situation of Yixian e-commerce. The financial report shows that Yixian e-commerce has maintained an upward trend in gross profit margin in the past four quarters, with a gross profit margin of 74.7% in the second quarter, up 11.9% year-on-year, the highest in a single quarter since listing.

In addition to the width of demand, the gap between domestic brands and international brands lies in the depth of brand value. Beauty has always been regarded as a category with great emotional value, and emotional skin care is also a hot topic on social platforms. Polaiya has recently made intensive speeches on gender equality, mental health and emotion to show the social value of the brand. On the basis of brand-level vocalization, domestic beauty cosmetics are also integrating emotional concepts into products. During the 6th China International Import Expo(CIIE), Yixian E-commerce unveiled the Shanghai Global Innovation R&D Center, and "emotional skin care" is one of its four major R&D fields in the future. EVE LOM brand bears the realization of this concept. It launched the fragrance candle of "Manor after Rain" in China International Import Expo(CIIE), and tracked and analyzed the emotional changes of users when they experienced the SPA through the AI brainwave emotional test instrument to show the brand’s emotional skin care technology.

From supplementing research and development, creating large single products, enhancing brand power in multiple dimensions and developing towards collectivization, domestic beauty cosmetics are constantly evolving. However, compared with international brands that have experienced long-term accumulation, there are still many gaps that need to be filled. At present, China consumers’ recognition of domestic products has increased, and Japanese and Korean brands have given up some market share in the cold, so domestic beauty products have ushered in new development opportunities. This year’s double 11 can be said to be the best performance of domestic beauty products. Jumping out of the promotion atmosphere and price advantage, domestic brands need to make more efforts to prove their unique value. As consumers, we may wish to give more opportunities and patience to domestic beauty cosmetics, so as to wait for the brand to hand over better answers.

Cover image source: unsplash

When it comes to the beauty industry, few people associate it with the traditional high-tech industry. But behind the beauty industry, it is indeed constantly colliding and merging with high technology. With the continuous deepening and application of high-tech such as big data and AI, the relationship between them has gradually become prominent.

Not long ago, L ‘Oré al held a cloud conference to announce the official launch of the first "BIG BANG Beauty Technology Creation Camp" in China. It is understood that this "Creation Camp" is in the form of a start-up challenge, and "Cloud invites" national technology start-ups to participate in exploring and incubating revolutionary beauty technology solutions. This is the first cross-border collision between the domestic beauty ecosystem and the science and technology ecosystem, but can beauty giants really have fun when they get involved in the field of science and technology? Why does the high-tech circle attach importance to the beauty industry?

First, it is not the "technology factor" added to beauty cosmetics, but the return to "the truth of technology"

In which direction science and technology grow, it depends on demand; How much room to grow depends on the market.

The consumer industry has always been a necessity for people’s lives, and beauty cosmetics is one of the industries with the highest innovation vitality and the most stable demand. In recent years, China’s beauty industry has developed rapidly, and the market scale has been expanding. The internationally renowned brands that settled in China in the early years and the rising local brands in recent years have, to a certain extent, shared the dividends of the overall rapid development of the industry.

As consumers become more and more mature, their preferences in product use, ingredients and brand positioning are also more subdivided. Concepts such as hydrating, moisturizing, whitening, protection, anti-aging, firming and cosmetic feeling will be more and more recognized by consumers, and subdivided products including eyes, lips, cheeks and neck will be closer to the needs of consumers. At the same time, the transformation of consumer core groups, the rise of Z generation consumption power, the awakening of men’s skin care awareness, and healthy living have all injected new strength into the domestic beauty industry market and promoted the development and improvement of the industrial chain.

According to the latest retail data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarter of 2019, the total retail sales of social consumer goods was 9,779 billion yuan, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. Judging from the retail sales of cosmetics, the national retail sales of cosmetics in the first quarter of 2019 was 75.3 billion yuan, an increase of 10.9% compared with the same period last year. It can be said that the current domestic beauty market has a very broad development space. Both the consumer’s choice and the new opportunities brought by consumption upgrading have promoted the expansion of the beauty market in China.

In addition, the continuous upgrading of beauty consumption affects not only the beauty industry, but also the emerging industries associated with it when the consumer demand of users is infinitely diversified, personalized and rapidly changing and the market activity is high. You know, the vast majority of consumers are not beauty experts. They need to know more about their skin condition and product information quickly, so as to choose the products that suit them, and they should wait for them. Therefore, the future beauty industry will not only provide a single beauty product, but also provide an overall solution of product+service+experience. For example, AI skin care programs help consumers analyze skin needs and formulate skin management programs; Beauty brands regulate the balance of skin micro-ecology through biotechnology to enhance the efficacy of skin care products; Technology companies develop hand-held beauty equipment with electromagnetic pulse to help skin care products penetrate the skin better.

The beauty industry is constantly moving towards technology, digitalization and convenience, which can drive the development of new technologies such as biotechnology, agricultural technology and entertainment technology around it and broaden the industry. In recent years, the beauty market share of international brands is rising sharply, and the domestic beauty market is gradually becoming high-end. It can be seen that it will be the core trend of the beauty industry in the future to help people with professional skin care, health and beauty with scientific and technological means and concepts.

Moreover, in a sense, beauty care itself is based on scientific practice, but in the era of underdeveloped technology, it is more like "experience talk." Nowadays, after thousands of years of development, mature technical means have not only solved many "skin care mysteries", but also greatly helped more people, especially those who don’t know much about beauty care, how to conveniently put on makeup and healthy skin care. Therefore, to be more precise, it is not the "technology factor" that is added to the beauty industry, but the return of the beauty industry to the "technology truth".

It can be predicted that the beauty industry will bring broad market space and application scenarios for innovative technology, and the deep integration of technology start-ups and beauty will "explode" unlimited potential for its own development, the development of the beauty industry and the lives of consumers.

Although we know that innovative technology is promising in the beauty market, how to integrate these two "different styles" elements and open up a road of sustainable development is still very challenging for beauty companies.

Since last year, beauty KOL live broadcast has become increasingly popular. Whether it’s Li Jiaqi, the "first lipstick brother", Viya, the "one product links 80,000 orders", or tens of thousands of cosmetics KOL behind them, they are all guiding consumers’ purchasing orientation greatly. Interestingly, beauty technology seems to have little to do with beauty KOL, but in essence, it helps consumers to judge whether the product is suitable for them by explaining the product in detail and "trying it" in advance, except that beauty KOL is an anchor real person trial, and the increasingly popular virtual color test application allows consumers to match independently through technical means such as AR and AI.

After a thorough study, the analysis results detected by the senior scientific research team with the help of big data, AR and other high-tech technologies are, to a great extent, more professional and valuable reference data than many cosmetic KOL trials, but at present, the influence of cosmetic technology on consumer decision-making is not as good as that of cosmetic KOL. This has to make beauty companies think deeply. On the road of beauty technology transformation, in addition to improving the technological attributes of products, whether it is necessary to think more about transformation strategies, user connections and technological depth.

Second, beauty technology needs intensive cultivation and a global vision.

Imagine that if a company defines itself as a "beauty enterprise", its entire corporate image, products and beauty attributes will be greater than the scientific and technological attributes; However, if you define yourself as a "beauty technology enterprise", then the two attributes must be "equally divided". For example, Xiaomi, although it originated from the Internet mobile phone, has always been an innovative technology enterprise, not a mobile phone brand.

Therefore, to improve the scientific and technological content of products, we must first improve the scientific and technological content of enterprises, that is, to achieve a 360-degree comprehensive transformation in the fields of research and development, marketing, operation and management.

On January 5, 2020, at CES in Las Vegas, L ‘Oré al first demonstrated a brand-new beauty technology equipment called Perso. This AI-supported home system developed by L ‘Oré al Technology Incubator can complete the on-site formula of skin care products and make-up products through a concise four-step process, and it can become smarter with the increase of usage times over time, and truly realize the direct delivery of personalized technology to consumers.

Before Perso, L ‘Oré al also introduced the first portable skin environment detector "Small Needle Probe" without batteries, Lancome’s new generation of small black bottles, customized liquid foundation and customized essence formulator, and other high-tech and even cross-border innovative products.

In addition, L ‘Oré al also organized a C2B "Zero Cream" campaign with consumers. This activity, aimed at exploring consumers’ reverse channel innovation, adopted an innovative mode of user demand-led and technology-assisted output. It took 59 days and 1,000 consumers participated, and more than 100,000 products were sold on the same day.

At present, L ‘Oré al China has set up "3S" and "3D" directions in product frontier research and development. "3S" means Green Science, Material Science and Life Science, and "3D" means digitalization, instrumentation and Diagnosis.

It is easier to understand that technology empowers R&D, so how can technology empower production, operation and management?

In recent years, L ‘Oré al has upgraded pillar departments such as information technology, operation, finance and human resources to strategic departments, and started to carry out technological and digital transformation. Develop and apply the most suitable brand-new solutions for each business field, including 3D printing, artificial intelligence, collaborative robots, virtual reality, Internet of Things and so on.

For example, L ‘Oré al applied software robots to financial reconciliation and online shop operation, and completed a lot of repetitive work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Using artificial intelligence technology to assist the retail team in store location; Reduce inventory and shorten the overall supply chain time by 30%; A new networked production line has been developed and a new method combined with the Internet of Things platform has been implemented, which can switch from the production of one product to another in a few minutes. At present, five factories are already using this networked production line technology, and another 20 new production lines will be installed and used in factories all over the world.

L ‘Oré al has naturally put a lot of effort into the most intuitive consumer experience scene of scientific and technological attributes display. Maybelline 360-degree AI intelligent color selection, exclusive "virtual hair dyeing and color testing" by L ‘Oré al Paris Salon, and "multifunctional intelligent detection application of scalp hair quality" by Paris Karsch ….. For girls who love beauty, the advent of these intelligent technology products not only enriches their own shopping experience, but also greatly simplifies the process from selection, makeup trial to purchase, and greatly solves the problem of choosing makeup.

In addition to the digital upgrade in the external business chain, L ‘Oré al has also adopted a new way of working internally, releasing the speed and efficiency of innovation.

L ‘Oré al has previously established a global multipolar organization, namely, three global centers in France+six regional hubs (China, Japan, India, South Africa, Brazil and the United States) +21 R&D centers. Mobile office and digital applications are widely used in the company. During this epidemic, the internal IT system of L ‘Oré al supported the telecommuting of nearly 3,400 users every day, including sending and receiving emails, accessing the company’s intranet resources, and video and audio conferences. The evolution of IT team’s working style is rapid iteration and continuous delivery, and all IT services have not been affected by this special situation. In addition, terminal sales data such as online and offline retail, virtual makeup test, software robot, chat robot and retail location with artificial intelligence are all stored in L ‘Oré al China Hybrid Cloud. This platform can support more than 2200 servers, 1800T of data, and more than 400 application systems, websites and small programs running on it.

Wu Sheng, founder of Scene Lab, said: "L ‘Oré al’s transformation of beauty technology running through the whole value chain inside and outside just represents the practice of’ scientific brand’ driven by data science, process science and value science. When L ‘Oré al is committed to the innovation of beauty technology, it believes in the digital beauty of this era and accelerates the digital life of this era. This essential change requires the evolution of ideas and also calls for a larger-scale co-creation. I look forward to L ‘Oré al becoming a real’ beauty infrastructure’, empowering and achieving each other with innovators. "

The three dimensions of scientific brand mentioned here, data science represents the power of data analysis and application technology such as big data and cloud computing; Process science refers to the transformation of 360-degree full value chain and the establishment of internal and external ecological circle; Value science represents the responsibility of science and technology to be good. For example, since 2007, L ‘Oré al has been working hard to reduce the impact of cosmetics packaging on the environment, and jointly developed the first environmentally-friendly paper tubular packaging with the upstream packaging company Albéa a.

Nowadays, beauty companies are constantly exploring in the direction of science and technology, and many technology companies have also set their research direction in the field of beauty and skin care. But in any case, the benefits of "beauty+technology" can only be the vast number of consumers. At present, the beauty technology of most enterprises is still in the stage of auxiliary tools, so it is necessary to truly regard technological transformation as the "top-ranking project", let more innovative technologies flood in, integrate into the strategic transformation thinking with a more overall view, and more thoroughly open up the internal and external ecological circles, so as to provide solutions that are more in line with the immediate needs of consumers and make "beauty+technology" a road of sustainable development.

Third, the next step: build an ecological circle and make the beauty infrastructure.

As a company with a history of 100 years, L ‘Oreal, a French beauty giant, has always advocated open innovation and strong alliance with many start-up technology companies.

Cooperation as the axis, technology as the wheel.

In 2016, L ‘Oré al invested in five beauty technology companies, which have core technologies in private customization, smart manicure and Internet content marketing. In 2018, L ‘Oré al Group acquired Canadian digital supplier Modify, which integrated AR technology into beauty retail and launched black technologies such as virtual makeup test and hair color test. Then the venture capital fund BOLD was launched. The first investment target was French startup Sillages Paris, an Internet company that mainly used artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to create customized perfume. In addition, at the same time, L ‘Oré al has established open cooperation website prices with start-ups around the world. By 2018, 23 start-ups have been supported under the framework of L ‘Oré al’s cooperation with Founders Factory and Station F.

At the 2019 Paris Viva Technology Exhibition, L ‘Oré al and Alibaba Group jointly released the first mobile artificial intelligence detection application for acne-EFFACLAR SPOTSCAN in la roche-posay. Effica can help consumers who are troubled by acne skin but can’t ask for help, carry out professional skin self-test anytime and anywhere, and get personalized scientific nursing plan. Wu Hanwen, chief digital marketing officer of L ‘Oré al China, once said at the exhibition: "Open innovation will help us effectively explore the application potential of cutting-edge technology in the field of beauty."

At present, China has the most demanding and sophisticated consumer groups in the world, and the most dynamic technology and innovation ecosystem in the world, which together constitute the original intention and foundation of L ‘Oré al’s first "Beauty Technology Creation Camp".

"One battalion creates more" and "one person has thousands of faces"

L ‘Oré al’s "BIG BANG Beauty Technology Creation Camp" has opened three tracks, namely, playing with new beauty experience, leading new operation and foreseeing new production and research, focusing on three key areas of beauty technology innovation, namely, consumer experience, supply chain operation, and future products with new forms, new effects and new experiences.

"We look forward to working together with technology start-ups to achieve common transformation and transformation, create more high-tech and beautiful consumption solutions for consumers, create new growth points for the vigorous development of the beauty industry, and contribute beautiful innovation to the prosperity of the consumer market in China and even the world in the post-epidemic era." Fabry, President and CEO of L ‘Oré al China, said: "The Beauty Technology Creation Camp is also the first step for L ‘Oré al to build a beauty technology ecosystem in China, and it is our co-creation and tolerance in implementing the new strategy of ‘HUGE Good Plan. We are confident that China will surely become a leader in the new round of global beauty technology explosion. "

From the perspective of participating enterprises, the "Creation Camp" horizontally covers the key links of the beauty industry chain, and the short-listed start-up technology enterprises can get different forms of win-win cooperation and support from L ‘Oreal at different stages of development. Such as market insight, product positioning, marketing strategy, media communication, incubation budget and other all-round support. L ‘Oré al, which covers more than 130 countries and has more than 110 years of experience in beauty operation, can provide a strong enough operating platform to accelerate the incubation, commercialization and scale of innovative achievements, and provide promotion opportunities and market landing in other markets around the world based on local applications in China.

Previously, in 2014, L ‘Oré al and Canada’s artificial intelligence augmented reality technology company Modify jointly created a virtual makeup trial technology, and Modify provided professional technology. L ‘Oré al can give more than 100 years of professional experience in beauty to help Modify fine-tune each makeup trial effect, and gradually from small to large, from the initial virtual makeup trial scene, it was successfully extended to virtual hair color and skin detection. At the same time, L ‘Oré al has a local team in each country to customize the planning, so that product technology can quickly land in the local market.

From the perspective of industry and market, in the post-epidemic period in China, technological innovation is an important engine to promote consumption recovery, and then promote market and economic recovery, as well as the beauty industry. Technology start-ups are the birthplace of innovative technology and the backbone of economic recovery in the post-epidemic era. Led by L ‘Oré al, a beauty company of a magnitude, bringing these forces together to achieve common growth and transformation will not only help a new round of "big outbreak" in the beauty industry, but also contribute to the market and economic prosperity after the epidemic.

The broad voice platform and efficient operation platform can provide more commercial guidance and added value for technology start-ups, and also make the overall solution of L ‘Oré al’s products+services+experiences more mature. When more and more technology companies are deeply integrated with beauty, more potential of the beauty industry will be stimulated, and the era of "one person and thousands of faces" may not be far from us.

On December 3rd, the Youth Badminton International Challenge held in South Korea ended, and the China Badminton Team achieved gratifying results.

This competition is divided into four age groups, namely U19, U17, U15 and U13. Among them, the China Badminton Team only participated in the competition of U19 age group.

Happily, China U19 badminton players joined the finals of men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, and won the first and second place in these four events.

In the final, Wang Zijun 2-1 Pan Yinlong won the men’s singles championship; Hu Keyuan/Lin Xiangyi 2-0 Chen Yongrui/Chen Zhehan won the men’s doubles championship; Chen Fanshu/Jiang Peixi 2-0 Liao Lizhen/Liu Yuanyuan won the women’s doubles championship; Hu Keyuan/Liu Jiayue 2-1 Lin Xiangyi/Liu Yuanyuan won the mixed doubles championship. Among them, Hu Keyuan won two championships and Liu Yuanyuan won two runner-ups.

However, U19 is also the epitome of the adult team. An Xiying, the women’s singles player of South Korea’s adult team, dominated the world in 2023. In U19 team, the women’s singles player of South Korea still dominated, and their Kim Min-hyun 2-1 Japanese player Yasukawa Shachuan won the women’s singles championship.

For the China Badminton Team, the problem of how to beat An Xiying has still not been solved. U19 players also lost to South Korean players, which means that it is impossible to defeat An Xiying by promoting young people.

In other age groups, the winners are basically Korean, Japanese and China Taipei players.

On December 5th, tongji hospital Junshan Campus was officially opened, which indicated that Chegu in China had taken another important step in promoting the development of health care, and the residents of Junshan New Town had another "home-front" hospital. It is a great concern of the people to get medical treatment, and it is also an important embodiment of improving social security, and it is also an urgent requirement to comprehensively promote the construction of a healthy China. Taking the construction of a close medical community as a breakthrough, accelerating the expansion and balanced distribution of regional high-quality medical and health resources, continuously pushing down the center of gravity and sinking resources, building a high-quality and efficient medical and health service system, and creating a "15-minute medical circle" are important measures to open up the "last mile" of primary medical services and improve people’s sense of access and satisfaction.

Construct a medical and health service system linked up and down. With the rapid progress in the construction of medical and health service facilities in China, how to maximize the efficiency of medical resource allocation has become a new topic. It is necessary to take large public hospitals as the "leader" and the construction of "medical association" as the core, build a specialist alliance, realize the interstitial evaluation of laboratory rooms in the medical association, mutual recognition of results, and the teaching of experts’ clinical rounds, so as to improve the allocation and utilization efficiency of medical resources. Accelerate the integration of family doctor team services into various community grids, and gradually realize the medical treatment mode of "seeking family doctors for minor illnesses and referring seriously ill patients to higher-level hospitals", so that data can run more, patients can run less, and a "15-minute medical circle" can be created to provide integrated and continuous health services for the masses.

Promote high-quality medical resources to benefit the grassroots. Looking forward to better medical conditions is an important part of people’s yearning for a better life. It is necessary to accelerate the orderly expansion and balanced distribution of high-quality medical resources, continue to push down the center of gravity and sink resources, and continuously improve the fairness and accessibility of basic medical and health services. Improve the grading diagnosis and treatment system, take online, offline and telemedicine as the carrier, train and guide local medical staff to improve the level and efficiency of diagnosis and treatment, provide assistance and agency services for people in need, improve the ability of diagnosis and treatment at the grassroots level, improve the patient’s medical experience, and enhance the attractiveness of primary medical and health institutions to patients, so as to achieve the goal of leaving the diagnosis and treatment of minor diseases, chronic diseases and common diseases at the grassroots level and gradually realize the full coverage of primary health services.

Strengthen the training of medical and health personnel. The key to further improve the quality of primary health services lies in attracting and retaining talents. Report to the 20th CPC National Congress, the Communist Party of China, proposed to develop and strengthen the medical and health team, with the focus on rural areas and communities. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of grassroots medical and health teams and strengthen the training and equipment of grassroots medical and health personnel with general practitioners as the focus. Constantly improve the career development mechanism of medical and health personnel, improve the incentive mechanism, implement the corresponding social security benefits, improve the medical environment and conditions, so that more talents can stay and stay, change "blood transfusion" into "hematopoiesis", stimulate the vitality of primary medical and health institutions, and let residents enjoy quality and convenient health services at their doorstep.

Source: Jingchu. com (Hubei Daily)

Author: Ren Yang (Wuhan Economic Development Zone)

Editor: Wang Shuxian

Recently, the game industry has been warm and windy.

As the weather vane of the industry, the 2022 China Game Industry Annual Conference was held in Huangpu. The protection of minors in games has entered a new chapter, the long-term trend of going to sea has not changed, the value of games has been re-evaluated, and the game technology has brought resonance effect ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

What are the possibilities of the game industry in 2023?

For the game industry, 2022 is difficult: whether the overall economic downturn, players’ willingness to pay, lack of capital confidence, and cold investment and financing, it has brought a lot of impact to the industry: many game projects have been dissolved or stopped, and the wave of layoffs has swept again.

The data shows that the domestic market sales revenue and user scale, self-developed game sales revenue and mobile game sales revenue all decreased year-on-year. After the obvious slowdown in 2021, the game user scale declined for the first time in the past 10 years, and the industrial development entered the era of stock market. "China’s game industry is in the stage of pressure storage", aiming at the game industry in 2022, "China Game Industry Report 2022" concluded.

* Actual sales revenue of China game market. Source: China Game Industry Report in 2022.

* The scale and growth rate of game users in China. Source: China Game Industry Report 2022.

However, despite the bleak data of the game industry in 2022, industry practitioners are still full of hope for the future. As Hong Xiao, CEO of Perfect World, said at the 2022 China Game Industry Annual Conference, "Many people feel quite pessimistic after reading the industry data in 2022, but no one said this word."

Recently, the 2022 China Game Industry Annual Conference was held in Huangpu, Guangzhou. According to Zhang Yijun, the first vice chairman of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, the number of participants exceeded 2,700, almost double that of previous years, and the scene was packed. He pointed out, "Through the current situation, we can feel what kind of development trend is in 2023. If everyone in this industry does not see hope and opportunities, this situation will not be formed." At the meeting, Gao Dawei, deputy general manager of Tencent’s digital public opinion department, also said with emotion, "Walking through various forums, I felt a surging enthusiasm, as if I heard the sound of the game super engine starting and roaring again."

After the "cold" 2022, major game companies have more expectations for 2023. "The bad news is exhausted, bottoming out", Tan Yanfeng, vice president of Shengqu Games, summed up his outlook for the future of the industry in eight words; Hong Xiao, CEO of Perfect World, pointed out that the game industry has entered the next stage, and there are still many values worthy of being dug deep by practitioners; Wu Shenghe, CEO of Zulong Entertainment, said that with the release of the version number, many game masterpieces are ready to go, and this year will be a year of fierce competition.

According to statistics, since the resumption of version number distribution last year, more than 180 domestic game version numbers have been distributed in two batches this year. In addition to large enterprises such as Tencent and Netease, many small and medium-sized manufacturers have also gained something. Among them, many game companies that have got the version number are eager to try, and are ready to make great efforts this year. For example, Tencent, which got the version number in January this year, has announced that it will set a file in February, and the number of reserved users in the whole network has exceeded 70 million; Netease survival shooting mobile game "Extraordinary Pioneer" started the "prism test" in January; Mihayou’s new work "Collapse: Xingyuan Railway" has also been opened for paid testing recently and is expected to go online in April; Zulong Entertainment’s new version of the love women game "In the Name of Shining" is also planned to be launched in China in the first half of the year …

In addition, the 2022 China Game Industry Report also revealed a more positive signal, "The game industry is expected to rebound after bottoming out from industry resources to users’ willingness and ability to consume.",and pointed out that insisting on high-quality and high-quality development, deepening the subdivision and differentiation of the track, and paying more attention to the user experience will become the focus of China’s game industry to break through the predicament and develop healthily.

In recent years, with the shrinking of the "blue ocean" of the domestic game market, going out has become a "compulsory question" for game companies. More and more companies take going out to sea as their key development strategy, and the number of game products going out to sea is increasing and the area of going out to sea is expanding.

At the same time, the achievements of domestic game companies in overseas markets are obvious to all. According to the data, in 2022, the actual sales revenue of China’s self-developed games in overseas markets was 17.346 billion US dollars, which was more than 4 times higher than that of 3.076 billion in 2014. According to Zhang Yijun, the first vice chairman of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee, the overseas income of self-developed games has exceeded 10 billion US dollars for four consecutive years, and it can also account for about one-third of the domestic market income. Such achievements show that domestic enterprises are doing well overseas, which is recognized by real money.

* Actual sales revenue and growth rate of China’s self-developed games in overseas markets. Source: China Game Industry Report 2022.

However, since 2022, the external unstable factors faced by games going out to sea have increased, such as changes in the international environment, changes in overseas laws and policies, overseas channels, and overseas tax issues. In the context of the decline in the scale of the global game market, the actual sales revenue of China’s self-developed games in overseas markets also declined for the first time in 2018, down 3.7% year-on-year. At the same time, as more and more domestic manufacturers flock to the sea track, the competition for going to sea becomes more and more fierce, the cost of buying continues to rise, the profit rate decreases, and the overseas game market has also "rolled" from the blue ocean to the red sea.

However, "the choice of game going out is irreversible". In the increasingly crowded overseas market, how should domestic game manufacturers tap the new amount and find the second growth curve?

Ao Ran, executive vice president and secretary general of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, pointed out that although China’s game enterprises will face more or less challenges in the process of going out to sea in 2022, the long-term positive trend has not changed. China’s games still have room for development in overseas markets, and there are development opportunities in some new fields. On the one hand, the emerging game markets in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin China and other regions have great development potential, which is expected to become the growth point of’s game going out to sea. On the other hand, there are development opportunities for games going out to sea on the sub-track of IP-adapted games, casual games and other game products.

In addition, keywords such as localization, content innovation and long-term operation were constantly mentioned at the game going to sea and marketing forum on the 13th. "Although going out to sea is already the Red Sea, there are many difficulties, but it is still a super market with billions of users, and opportunities are always there." Dong Bin, deputy general manager of Glacier Network, said that if you always make good products, make good experiences and improve quality, you still have many opportunities to go out to sea.

Yin Tianming, vice president of Sanqi Mutual Entertainment Products, pointed out that domestic games have entered an era of striving for quality, innovation and quality in overseas markets. Enterprises going to sea must change from "picking fruits" to "planting good trees" and make efforts in three aspects: in-depth localization, product innovation and continuous change, and refined distribution and operation. Zhong Kunjie, deputy general manager of Xinghui Games, said that with the intensification of market competition, the importance of long-term operation of game products has increased sharply. To make the game run longer and the audience more stable, we should do a good job in content iteration, localization, deep layout and cross-promotion.

At the same time, as a cultural carrier, games also shoulder the important mission of spreading Chinese culture abroad in the process of going to sea. Zhang Yijun, the first vice president of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, said that the excellent games that have been successfully launched at present have absorbed a lot of Chinese traditional cultural elements, which have formed a very good communication role in foreign markets, and also provided help for how to expand overseas more accurately and effectively in the next step. Some enterprises point out that game products with unique cultural attributes can prolong the game viscosity of players in the game, attract users better and reduce the cost of user drainage. Combining with traditional culture and traditional festivals will be the future trend of game development.

"The era of earning money by going out to sea has passed." How will enterprises going out to sea grasp new growth points and face challenges in 2023? It is worth looking forward to.

The scientific and technological attributes are prominent, and the potential value still needs to be tapped.

Paying attention to the science and technology circle, it is not difficult to find that the recent scenery is not only ChatGPT, but also game technology.

At the annual meeting of the game industry in 2022, the scientific and technological attributes of games have received unprecedented attention. Whether it is a forum for game re-cognition, a forum for game+and technology resonance, the topic of technical value of games cannot be avoided.

Ao Ran, executive vice president and secretary general of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, pointed out that in recent years, the industry has gradually reached a consensus: as a compound cultural content product, games have both natural cultural attributes and profound scientific and technological attributes, and based on these two attributes, they are constantly enriching their economic attributes and becoming a driver to support the integration and development of digital technology and the real economy.

From the discussion in the industry, it can also be clearly seen that the scientific and technological attributes of games are promising in many other industrial fields, and have brought gratifying resonance effects, such as feeding back cutting-edge technologies as a perfect testing ground, "breaking the circle" to promote the integration of numbers and reality, and resonating with the construction of basic fields of science and technology, especially the construction of scientific and technological talents. Andy, vice president of Tencent Interactive Entertainment, said that with the accelerated development of digital and information technology, today’s video games are becoming a super digital scene, and the "culture" and "technology" attributes of the game industry have been demonstrated unprecedentedly.

According to the Research Report on Game Technology Capability and Technology Value, 62% of the respondents recognized the role of game technology in national technology innovation capability, 81% of the respondents agreed that games promoted the development of AI technology, 91.4% of the public researchers believed that game technology promoted the physical field, and 81% of the industry respondents recognized the talent supply and employment capacity of the game industry. At the same time, the report also puts forward two exciting prospects: first, in the future, games will guide more scientific and technological innovations to cross the "valley of death" and improve the survival rate of high and new technologies; Second, the game will become the basic environment to inspire more scientific and technological innovation and give birth to more "unexpected joy".

Undoubtedly,The scientific and technological attributes of the game have been further recognized and affirmed. As Aoran said, "As an important help to realize a strong country in science and technology, the value of the game has become increasingly prominent.".

Referring to how the game industry should better release the scientific and technological efficiency of games and bring more resonance effects in the future, Aoran put forward three key points: promoting innovative breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies, helping the development of other social fields and strengthening the talent pool in the science and technology industry. Yang Fang, deputy director of Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Publishing Bureau, also said that in the future, games should make new achievements in serving scientific and technological innovation, give full play to the role of game industry development in promoting scientific and technological progress, increase investment in cutting-edge technology research and development, speed up the breakthrough of key core technology innovation, make great efforts to promote scientific and technological innovation and help science and technology overcome difficulties. According to its disclosure, this year, Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China will implement the "Network Publishing Technology Innovation and Development Plan", focusing on promoting the breakthrough of the underlying technology of online games such as virtual reality, perceptual interaction, game engine and motion capture, and promoting the expansion and application of new formats such as metauniverse, digital twins and cloud games.

However, the potential value behind the game goes far beyond this.

The People’s Daily once wrote that games have become an industry of great significance to a country’s industrial layout and scientific and technological innovation, and its potential value deserves further attention and deep excavation. Many game companies also admitted at the annual meeting that the game industry has not really released its value in the digital economy, and it is the general trend to "reassess" the value of games.

"Through this annual meeting, you may have felt that games will become a starting point for many economic phenomena in the future. It has gone beyond the original inherent form of the game and started cross-domain and cross-border, which has a wide range of economic and social values. " Zhang Yijun, the first vice chairman of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association and chairman of the Game Working Committee, said that game companies should focus on the overall development of the industry, explore the positive social value of games at multiple levels and dimensions, and help the game industry to use more diverse social benefits, making a unique contribution to the construction of a strong socialist cultural country and the implementation of the digital economy development strategy.

In view of the future development trend of the game industry, Aoran, executive vice president and secretary general of China Audio-visual and Digital Publishing Association, once concluded at the annual meeting that China’s game industry is an emerging force in the cultural field, and its future development will usher in greater opportunities.The game industry will take the road of independent innovation more firmly, tell the story of China more vividly, and integrate with technological innovation at a higher level.

The trough in 2022 has passed. Can the game industry see the "rainbow" in 2023? Let’s wait and see.

Produced by Nandu Big Data Research Institute

Network content ecological governance research center

Writing: Luo Yun

Source: 2022 China Game Industry Annual Conference and 2022 China Game Industry Report.

"

A new application test automation method, which can quickly evaluate the experience quality provided by the world’s popular mobile applications.

German technology company recently announced the introduction of enhanced functions for its Nemo device application test suite. The software solution adopts automation technology and artificial intelligence (AI), which gives a powerful boost to wireless service providers and application developers, and can help them quickly evaluate the real interaction between smartphone users and local mobile applications. It is German Technology that provides advanced design and verification solutions, aiming at accelerating innovation and creating a safe and interconnected world.

In the past few years, the number of users who use mobile applications to access digital content and participate in social media platforms and online games has increased significantly worldwide. Compared with the mobile web browser, the local mobile app can provide a tailor-made excellent experience; Therefore, the use of mobile applications has significantly promoted this growth.

Matti Passoja, the head of Nemo wireless solution of De Technology, said: "Service providers and mobile application developers want to know the real experience of end users when they access OTT applications with smartphones connected to cellular networks, and they need a reliable way to verify it. It is DeTech that has created an automated application testing method based on its unique software and hardware technology platform. This method uses real applications, and can accurately understand network performance even in extremely complex and changeable situations. "

It is DeTech that makes full use of artificial intelligence, machine learning (ML) and automation technology, and uses the data captured by local mobile applications (instead of the simulated data flow) to create a brand-new device testing application method. This method can evaluate the interaction between end users and their mobile applications more accurately. The new application test automation method can help wireless service providers quickly optimize the performance of 5G network, and at the same time provide better quality of experience (QoE) for smartphone users. Users can enjoy the world’s most widely used OTT services and social media applications, such as Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Teams, Snapchat, TikTok and Zoom.

The new automatic test application method is one of the three supplementary test methods provided in Nemo device application test suite of German Science and Technology. According to the type of mobile application and key performance indicators (KPIs), the test method can be used with a Nemo field test solution. Nemo test suite users can obtain comprehensive, real and flexible 5G network performance verification and end-user QoE evaluation.

It is a Nemo testing tool of German Science and Technology, which can capture real measurement data in the field and use it for real-time analysis or post-processing analysis. These test tools include Nemo Outdoor 5G NR drive test solution, Nemo Backpack Pro 5G indoor benchmark test solution and Nemo network benchmark test solution.

Generative AI is getting more and more popular. Is this really a good business?

Recently, AI painting is on fire.

By inputting some words, AI can generate an image that matches the words in a few seconds. These images are wild, and some are even bizarre. For example, people have extra fingers on their hands, and their fingers bend unnaturally. Even, AI can generate some meaningless billboards and alphabets that humans have never seen before.

Although AI painting is outrageous, it has set off a wave of science and technology: the spring of generative AI has come.

David Beisel, a venture capitalist at NextView Ventures, said that in the past three months, the word "generative AI" once became a hot word. Moreover, the generative AI technology has developed rapidly and the market enthusiasm is so high that many people even quit their jobs to start a business in this field.

There is no doubt that AI has been in a prosperous stage in the past five years or so, but most of these past advances have to do with understanding the existing data-for example, the AI model has been able to quickly and efficiently identify whether there are only cats in your mobile phone photos. However, the generative AI model generates something completely new that has never been seen before. In other words, generative AI is not just about analyzing existing data, but creating.

Boris Dayma, founder of Craiyon generative AI, believes that "generative AI is not only creating old images, but also creating many new things, which are completely different from what we have seen before."

Sequoia Capital also said in a blog post on its website: "Generative AI has the potential to create trillions of dollars in economic value." Sequoia Capital predicts that generative AI may change all industries that require human beings to create original works, from games to advertising to the legal profession. It is worth mentioning that Sequoia Capital also pointed out in its blog post that this message was partly written by GPT-3 (GPT-3 is a generative AI capable of generating text).

Working principle of generative AI

In the past, deep learning technology was widely used to train the model on large data sets. When the program understands the relationships in these data, the model can be applied to actual scenes, such as identifying whether there is a dog in a picture or translating text, and so on.

The working principle of the image generator is to reverse this process. For example, instead of translating English into French, it translates English phrases into images. Specifically, it usually has two main parts, one is to process initial phrases, and the other is to convert data into images.

At first, generative AI was based on a method called GAN, that is, the generative adversarial network. In essence, this method is to make two artificial intelligence models compete with each other to better create images that meet the target.

At present, generative AI is usually based on Transformer, such as image generator DALL-E and so on. DALL-E was first created by OpenAI in 2021, and in 2022, OpenAI released DALL-E 2.

Christian Cantrell, a developer who focuses on generative AI, said: "With DALL-E 2, we can really cross uncanny valley." (The Valley of Terror theory is a hypothesis about human perception of robots and non-human objects. It was put forward by Japanese robot expert Masahiro Mori in 1970. )

Another commonly used AI-based image generator is Craiyon (formerly known as DALL-E Mini), where users can enter phrases in the browser and see the illustrations it generates within a few minutes.

According to Dayma, since its launch in July 2021, Craiyon has produced about 10 million unprecedented pictures every day, which adds up to 1 billion. Earlier this year, the use of Crayon soared, and Dayma also took Crayon as its full-time job. In addition, Dayma has created a Twitter account to post the weirdest and most creative pictures generated by Craiyon. For example, ketchup comes out of the tap on the Italian sink.

In addition, Stable Diffusion has also received wide attention. The project was released in August this year and has been open source on GitHub. Developers can run the project on computers, not just in the cloud or through programming interfaces. For example, Stable Diffusion can be integrated into Adobe Photoshop by plug-in, allowing users to generate backgrounds and other parts of images, and use layers and other Photoshop tools to operate in applications.

Cantrell, the developer of the plug-in, said, "I want to meet these creative professionals, so that they can introduce artificial intelligence into their creative work, instead of destroying their work."

It is understood that Cantrell has worked for Adobe for 20 years. After leaving in 2022, Cantrell focused on the direction of generative AI. Cantrell said that Stable Diffusion has been downloaded tens of thousands of times, and artists told him that they used this plug-in in many unexpected places, such as making Godzilla animation or creating pictures of Spider-Man.

Start-up companies get together

Some investors regard generative AI as a potentially transformative change, just like the early development of smart phones or the Internet. This kind of transformation has greatly expanded the potential market of this technology.

"Before that, artificial intelligence was not unprecedented. Before 2007, we were not without mobile devices, "said Beisel, a seed investor." But at this moment, everything came together. The final consumer can experience and see something different from before. "

Cantrell believes that machine learning is similar to a more basic technology: database. "Machine learning is a bit like a database, which opens up a whole new world for network applications. All the applications we have used in our life are built on the database. But no one cares about how the database works. People only know how to use it. "

Michael Dempsey, managing partner of Compound VC, said that in the past, it was "very rare" for laboratory technology to enter the mainstream, but at present, generative AI has attracted wide attention of venture capitalists. Nevertheless, he warned that the current generative AI may be in the "curious stage" near the peak of the hype cycle, and the companies established at this stage may fail because they don’t focus on the specific uses that enterprises or consumers are willing to pay for.

Others in the industry believe that startups that can apply new technologies such as generative AI today may challenge technology giants such as Google, Meta and Microsoft in the future.

At present, many companies applying generative AI technology have already received large amount of financing, and their valuations have also risen. For example, earlier this year, Hugging Face was valued at $2 billion after receiving investments including Lux Capital and Sequoia Capital; OpenAI has also received more than $1 billion from Microsoft and Khosla Ventures.

In addition, according to Forbes, Stability AI, the developer of Stable Diffusion, is negotiating with investment institutions to raise up to $1 billion in venture capital.

Cloud vendors and chip vendors will benefit.

Besides start-ups, cloud service providers such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google can also benefit from it, because generative AI may require a huge amount of computation.

Meta and Google have also taken action and started recruiting talents. In September of this year, Meta released an artificial intelligence application called "Make-A-Video", which can generate videos, which makes the generative AI technology a step further.

"This is a great progress," Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, posted on his Facebook page. "It is much more difficult to generate videos than photos, because besides correctly generating each pixel, the system must also predict how they will change over time."

Recently, Google matched with Meta and released a program code called Phenaki, which can also convert text into video and generate several minutes of footage.

This craze may also boost chip manufacturers such as Nvidia, AMD and Intel, because the advanced graphics processors produced by these companies are ideal for training and deploying artificial intelligence models.

At a recent meeting, Huang Renxun, CEO of Nvidia, emphasized that generative AI is the key use of the company’s latest chip, and he said that this kind of program may "revolutionize communication" soon.

At present, there are not many uses of generative AI that can generate commercial benefits. Many exciting breakthroughs today come from free or low-cost experiments. For example, some writers have tried to use image generator to generate images for articles. An example of Nvidia is to use a model to generate new 3D images, including people, animals, vehicles or furniture, which can be filled into the virtual game world.

Ethical issues can not be ignored.

While generating AI excites the industry, the ethical issues it brings are also worthy of attention.

The first is employment. Compared with professional illustrators, generative AI is obviously cheaper. Therefore, generative AI is likely to rob artists, video producers and other people engaged in creative work of their "rice bowls".

In addition, there are complex problems in originality and ownership of the content created by generative AI.

Generated AI is trained on a large number of images. Therefore, it is still controversial whether the creator of the original image has copyright requirements for the generated new image.

Some time ago, an artist won an art competition in Colorado, and his winning image was created by a generative AI named MidJourney. After winning, the artist said in an interview that he selected one image from hundreds of images generated by himself and post-processed it in Photoshop.

It is worth mentioning that some images generated by Stable Diffusion are watermarked, which indicates that some of the original data sets are copyrighted. Previously, Getty Images (a picture trading company based in Seattle, USA) announced that it was forbidden for users to upload generated AI pictures to its picture library, because the company was worried that there might be some copyright problems in such pictures. .

With the improvement of image generation software, generative AI may also deceive users, make them believe false information, or display images or videos of events that never happened.

In addition, developers must also deal with the possibility that models trained on a large amount of data may have biases related to gender, race or culture contained in the data, which may cause the models to show such biases in their outputs.

Original link:

Source: AI Frontline, author: Kif Leswing. If there is any infringement, please contact to delete it.